


Old World (Seeing) Reds

by fransoun



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 4
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Implied/Referenced Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-17
Updated: 2016-09-17
Packaged: 2018-08-15 11:04:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8053864
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fransoun/pseuds/fransoun
Summary: He'd heard of Old World Blues, but this was something different. Whatever it was inside her, it was angry, and it burned.





	Old World (Seeing) Reds

The sun beat down from high overhead, and Hancock grunted and tipped his tricorn hat even further down over his eyes, tucking himself back into what meager shadow the doorway of the bunker provided. If the blasted thing meant to dry him out even further, it would have to try harder than that. 

In front of him, the air shimmered as heat rolled off the ground in lazy waves. It was so damn bright out that everything around him seemed to _glow_ , and not the familiar green glow he was used to, either. It all looked white, _too_ white, like it had been bleached by the sun - except for the sky, which blazed the brightest damn blue he'd ever seen. The incessant drone of buzzing bloatflies filled the air, seeming to come from everywhere at once, although he'd picked them out a while ago hovering in a copse of ossified trees a little ways off.

They'd avoided the roads today, the cracked asphalt hot enough to fry a mirelurk egg and mix in some melted tar for flavor. Even so, his travelling companion had shed everything under her combat armor but a thin tank top. 

"You could always strip down, too, you know," she'd said, and then thrown back her head and laughed when he'd clutched his coat to himself in mock outrage and offended dignity.

They never had to deal with days like this in Goodneighbor. The crumbling, skeletal remnants of the once-city's skyscrapers cast plenty of shadows over his little town, and that was just the way he liked it. 

(She'd told him, once, about sunscreen, how people used to slather it all over themselves when they went out in the sun, how they'd worried about skin cancer and, worse than that, _wrinkles_. He'd laughed himself sick.)

If he could have, he would have ducked inside the bunker for some cool concrete relief - but he was out here keeping watch, and damned if he wouldn't do just that. 

He idly flipped a recently-deceased Gunner over with his boot, checking to see if the man had anything on him worth taking. Hancock couldn't see anything, but when his favorite neighborhood vaultie came out, he'd bet all the Mentats in his coat pocket that she'd pull at least half a dozen things off him. And then turn them into a generator.

Speaking of whom...it was awfully quiet inside the bunker. Normally, he'd expect to hear the familiar sounds of rummaging - a _zzzzzzip_ as she opened a duffel bag, the rattling _slam_ of a desk drawer as she closed it, the _creeeeeakSNAP_ of splintering wood as she pried open a crate, or even, if he listened hard enough, the quiet _click-click_ of metal against metal as she picked another lock. 

But right now he wasn't hearing anything.

Maybe he'd duck inside after all and take a quick look around. Just in case.

She stood over a computer terminal with her head bowed, arms planted on either side of it. She was breathing hard, chest heaving like they'd just sprinted all the way from Quincy to the Castle with a deathclaw hot on their heels.

 _Shit_. He hurried over to her, shotgun braced against his arm as he dug his free hand into his coat for a stimpak, or at least a Med-X. It was a habit he'd taken up when he started travelling with her - any chems he might need in a firefight went into this pocket. Didn't want to reach in there for a syringe of Psychojet and pull out a bottle of Day Trippers instead.

 _Shitshitshit_. Had she been bitten by a stingwing or a bloodbug or something? There was no obvious wound, and none of the blood on her clothes looked fresh, but he kept glancing worriedly over her even as he scanned the rest of the room. Fuckin' sun was good for one thing, at least - he could see into every corner of this damn bunker. 

"It had to burn," she whispered fiercely. "It all had to burn."

Hancock started, then relaxed just a little, easing his gun back to his side. _Something_ was definitely up, but at least she didn't sound hurt.

"Do you know what this place used to be?" she asked softly.

Hancock didn't answer. He knew enough to know when someone wasn't asking him a question.

"It was a checkpoint. A military checkpoint. They'd stop people here and search them, seize anything they found 'suspicious'." Her fingers carved vicious quotes into the air. "Or they'd simply 'detain' them."

She turned her head and blinked, like she'd just noticed him standing there beside her, and then gestured to the screen in front of them. "There's still logs of the searches from the month or so... _before_ on the system."

Hancock leaned in, reading over her shoulder.
    
    
    [Jones Family]
    
    
    [Donald Buczynsky]
    
    
    [Dearing and Kennedy]
    
    
    [Wu Family]

"And d'y'know what? I read that list and I knew _exactly_ who'd been let through 'without incident' and who had been 'detained'. Didn't have to open a single entry. I _knew_. I fuckin' _knew_. Just by looking at their goddamn _names_."

All of the fire, all of the fight, seemed to drain out of her at once. She sank down to the dusty floor, pressing her back to the terminal housing and hugging her knees to her chest. Hancock settled down next to her, one leg stuck straight out in front of him.

"And I knew _before_ , too. But I had my house in the suburbs with its green lawn and its white picket fence and it was so easy to pretend it would all be okay.

"'There are food shortages, but they're somewhere else. There are riots, but they're somewhere else. The plague is spreading, but it won't come here. The checkpoints are here, but they're not for you.' 

"But I _knew_. And I didn't do anything about it.

"And then there were those bastards at Vault-Tec..." She scrubbed at her face. "So maybe...not with the bombs. Not like that. But the old world had to burn, one way or another."

Hancock tilted his head back, watching motes of dust drift down through the shafts of sunlight slanting through broken shutters. He sighed, and his breath stirred them into little whirlwinds, like dust devils in the back alleys of Goodneighbor.

"We all got things in our pasts we ain't proud of," he said, watching them settle again. "You stayed when you shoulda run. I ran when I shoulda stayed. Ain't nothing we can do about that now."

"So maybe the world wasn't so great back then after all. And maybe it ain't so great now." He turned to look at her, nudging her gently with his elbow until she lifted her head and looked back at him. "But you and me? We're out here makin' a difference. Helpin' people that need helpin'. Hurtin' people that need hurtin'. Doin' what we can with what we got to make it a better place."

He grinned at her. "The mayor of Goodneighbor and the general of the Minutemen. We don't make a half bad team."

She smiled back at him. It was faint, but it was there.

He pushed himself to his feet and held out a hand to help her to hers. "So. We got everything here we need? I think I saw some duct tape on one of the gunners outside."

She stood, but didn't answer right away, her eyes still distant and unfocused, staring back into the what-was. Hancock gently took her chin in his hand, tipping her face up towards his.

"Sunshine."

Maybe it was his hand on her face, the feeling of a ghoul's skin against hers, or meeting his pitch-black eyes. Maybe it was the combat armor, the weight of the wasteland settling on her shoulders, or the sharp metallic taste of irradiated air on her tongue. Whatever it was, it was enough.

Taking a deep breath, she straightened her shoulders. "There's a military ammo bag over there. We could use the ballistic fiber. Then I think we're good to go."

Hancock grabbed the bag and swung it over his shoulder as she crossed to the desk and gathered up a few magazines. Then he reached out his hand.

She took it, and together, they stepped back out into the blinding sun.


End file.
